#PWChat Recap: Gender Disparities in Medicine

Physician’s Weekly, along with co-host Julie Silver, MD, addressed the important, timely, topic of gender disparities in medicine as part of our latest #PWChat. Topics discussed included studies indicating that women earned less than men regardless of rank, clinical hours or training, with other specialties having similar findings, what can be done to close the gender wage gap, gender disparities in rank, retention & leadership, as well as that women are less likely to attain senior-level positions than men.

A1. Transparency in salary reporting by offers is the first way to start. When interviewing it was an awkward discussion. Effective negotiation skills training should be offered in training so that women are more comfortable with negotiating. #equalpayday#womeninmedicine

A2 When I read this abstract, my heart broke. One solution is to focus on how #WomenInMedicine are able to build their professional REPUTATION & identify/correct disparities (eg recog awards, Grand Rounds). #PWChathttps://t.co/12Rai7xi0P

A3 Some colleagues suggested using locum tenens for #WomenInMedicine on maternity leave during training to decrease stress on those who cover & avoid problems in this study by @AmyOxentenko et al. What do you think? #PWChathttps://t.co/l3t2B8JVle

A3 I think that would depend on your practice setting. Some practices may not need that extra coverage and other may. If we build a system that allows for physician leave for pregnancy, paternity leave, illness, etc. then it should have redundancy. #PWChat

A4 Amplifying our colleagues successes is such an important part of being a leader in Medicine. We should amplify each other EVERY day- make it a habit. @feminemtweets does this a lot. If we all do this every day, it will be second nature when it comes around to awards

A5 One soln to the problem in this report might be to have all medical educators undergo implicit bias training on a regular basis so they can recognize their unconscious tendencies to use gendered language that is unhelpful to #WomenInMedicine. #PWChathttps://t.co/3bljEmygTg

A7: As women leaders, we need to ask publicly, “what would you think if I/she were a man?” pick the right situations, but try it! You can do it with a smile and not as an accusation. It’s not a conversation unless we start it. #PWChat#WomenInMedicine@MinnowWalsh@KBerlacher

A8 After we published this report, approx 100 doctors from different specialties signed a letter calling on US med societies to use metrics & analyze inclusion w/transparency to stakeholders. Some are doing it. All should. #PWChat#WomenInMedicinehttps://t.co/UnokVdCJNE

A8. How about 7. opening up committee assignments more frequently and reaching out to newer graduates (of which there are likely to be more women than previously due to med school matriculation data)? #PWChat#womeninmedicine